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Thursday, September 18, 2014

7 H. Target Interview

1.Can you give us an update on what has been going on with the band since the recording and release of the new album?

It’s a very interesting thing – I mean the recording sessions and the release of the new album. The story is that it took 2 years to release 0.00 Apocalypse. It was recorded together with our previous album Psy Slam Damage in October 2012. It was a crazy week in Cosmosstudio in Moscow, very cool days. We are always creating music without vocals because we do not have a permanent vocalist in the band and that time it took about a year to find the right guy and to record the right vocals and when to find the right sound-guy to make the album crush. It may seem crazy but that’s it – you are now listening to a 2012 album and call it new.

Since the new disk was released we were creating the new songs in may-july 2014 with some kind a different direction but we made a pause now due some personal reasons, maybe we will come back to reheasaling soon.

2.In May, you had released a new album, how would you describe the musical sound that is presented on the recording and also how does it differ from the stuff you have released?

I can say that it’s our most ‘commercial’ sound, the most professionally made if you need to open up what I mean when I say ‘commercial’ Neil Kernon did a great job and in some way it changed my feeling of this songs, because (as you know) the sound means a lot in how do you perceive the music.

0.00 Apocalypse’s sound is more strings-oriented. This time our sound do not have such a crushing drums sound as it was on Fast-Slow Demolition or Psy Slam Damage. This time guitars and bass are it the front row. 0.00 also has a most detailed vocal line with some lyrics are readable in it. Another cool thing that I think is interesting to know that only Mirus knows the real lyrics. Lyrics that are listed in booklet again are the kind of association line to the whole instrumental + vocals music picture. In every 7 H.Target release the lyrics is unknown – it can be no lyrics at all, but Mikhail writes this words to make some textual visualization.

This time there’s not so many movie samples in the songs and the songs are not so structurally crazy as it was on Psy Slam for example. And I find funny that some critics are saying that the band improved their songwriting – this improved stuff was created together with ‘unimproved’ Psy Slam stuff, haha.

3.What are some of the lyrical topics and subjects the band explores with the music?

Most of the lyrical themes is exploitation of of crazy and wicked Asian cyber horror and all this sci-fi themes of anti-utopia future. I can’t say that there is any message in lyrics but there’s a guide to the atmosphere of the whole sound. Our modern world can be a source of inspiration for music like ours too, not only visions from movies – high technology and low life, smart gadgets and silly people, connected to the whole world and disconnected to themselves – it’s all about it too.

4. The band started out as 'Suregeont' what was the decision behind the name change and also the meaning and inspiration behind the name '7 H. Target'?

Surgeont was a funny brutal death\grindcore band when it was formed in 2005. I became a bassist in the band since 2009 when it was a kind of local slamming brutal death, but it was not as interesting as 7H became – both musically and lyrically. 7 H.Target was started by our drummer Mikhail when he invited me and Alexey to play a couple songs for his ‘side project’ – just to play some slam stuff that he wanted to listen himself. After a couple weeks it became a main project with this wicked name, and the new level of creativity that was never before in the band. We changed everything except our basic 3-piece lineup. It was some talk some years after to record a Surgeont album with those old songs but it was just talks.

Every listener can put his own meaning to the 7 H.Target, because it was created without any meaning. I believe that the listener is the creator of music too, as the reader is an author too in some way. As the highest form of knowledge is as abstract as the music, this name is some kind of formless form to put your own vision into it.

5.What are some of the best shows that the band has played over the years and also how would you describe your stage performance?

For me the best show is the show with some kind of connection with the people. This connection can appear in large hall or the small room, and it can not appear even if the hundreds of people are standing right in front of you. I can call great a show for 10 people in the empty club and call the crowded gig worst because the felling of the atmosphere is the main thing – good or bad sound, one or 1000 people it can be lots of ways but the good show – is show that putted me to the another state, to another level of perception. I think that it’s a mystery of sound and energy, it’s a thing that you can only feel. It was some shows like that and it was a pleasure to play there. Russian tour with Cephalotripsy and Abaddon Incarnate had the shows like that, Sick Fest 9 in Arkhangelsk, couple gigs in Ekaterinburg and sure the debut 7 H.Target show in Nizhny Novgorod in summer 2010.

6.Do you have any touring or show plans for the future?

I can’t say anything about the touring plans because now we are not live-show oriented and more drowned into creating.

7.On a worldwide level how has the feedback been to your music by fans of brutal death metal?

You know, the feedback is very abstract thing too. In the world of fast connection you can’t say for sure how much is the word is spreaded. What can be a catalyst of good feedback? Number of likes, sold albums, comments? As we are the underground band we do not have lots of feedback but everything we have is positive – I never heard any serious reasonable negative feedback to our music, and it’s nice to see that some people for all over the world saying that 7 H.Target is the new word in BDM and stuff like that. As the part of the promotion is made by other people like guys from the labels who have their own interest behind promotion of the band it’s hard to say how really you are known and how big is feedback.

8.Every since the band has been around you have released new material every year, do you feel the band puts in a lot of time and effort when it comes to creating music?

From very beginning 7 H. Target is a band that is oriented on creating music. Our first LP was created in 4-5 months right in rehearsal room. We are not the guys who will release a 10 songs album per 5 years and playing it on every rehearsal and take a months and months to create something new. Surgeont was band like that with only split release and couple demos. We are catching the vibe of creativity between us and letting this energy flow that makes 7H so creative band. It’s better not to play at all that play something that is not came to you from the other world, something that you can call a real creativity. I believe that the man is not a creator as someone who can make something from nothing but the one who connects to the sources that are somewhere in outer and in inner space at the same time. Lots of words are said, lots of songs are played and there is nothing new under the sun and putting the content into twisted form is what 7 H.Target is doing.

9.Where do you see the band heading into musically during the future?

I really can’t say the thing like that related to musical, because as I said, it’s something that comes to you, not something you are coming to. All that I can say is that at the time I am into more blackened way of playing.

10.What are some of the bands or musical styles that have had an influence on your music and also what are you listening to nowadays?

There is a old good formula of playing music that lots of bands must grow up to – do not try to play like your favorite band. It means that you will play about the same but I don’t need to listed to a band that plays like Cannibal Corpse for example, I’ll better listen to the Cannibal Corpse themselves. That’s it. 7 H.Target have lots of influence from non death metal and non metal genres. Sonic influence can come from noise, chill out, hip hop or jazz artist and non-musical soundscapes can give influence. It needs to be just a little more sensitive and opened to the new sources. I can’t understand how to be a die-hard fan of metal and stuck into this frames, for me it’s at least boring.

My personal music preference nowadays is rhythmic noise artists with distorted beats like Synapscape, Converter, Haus Arafna or Propergol. Light side is a baroque era classic composers like a Bach, Telemann, Vivaldi and Rameau, or XX century composers like Stravinsky, Bartok, Ligeti.. Some ‘folktronica’ artists in between. There’s a lot of music that can make me high.

11.What are some of your non musical interests?

I’m interested in retro movies and reading mostly philosophy and religious themed stuff. Lots of thing that comprehend this world.

12.Before we wrap up this interview, do you have any final words or thoughts?

There’s some interesting stuff said, so why not to listen to the new 7 H.Target album again? Have a good time with it, cheers!